2026, Vol., No.73

The Research of the Korean Classic 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 1.22

pISSN : 1226-3850
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kcl1994

This study examines the classic Korean novel Hanhu-ryong-jeon to trace the process through which two disabled protagonists expand the boundaries of their existence through their material specificity and transform into heroic subjects through the material entanglement of their bodies. Contrasting with existing scholarship that has conventionally interpreted this work as a “narrative of overcoming disability” focused on resolving physical deficiency, this paper re-evaluates the literary value of disabled bodies by highlighting the “relational collaboration” and “active agency” manifested through their somatic interactions. To this end, the process of heroism formation through relational collaboration is analyzed across four distinct stages. First, in the stage of mutually complementary combination, the study examines how the blind Han Hu-ryong and the paralyzed Im Heo-yeong compensate for each other’s physical limitations, transforming into a new agential subject that merges “seeing eyes” with “walking legs.” Second, in the stage of active realization, the paper demonstrates that their subduing of a tiger and acquisition of gold are not accidental windfalls, but rather the fruits of rigorous somatic and ethical collaboration. Third, in the stage of the expansion of social values, the study analyzes how the broadening of their relational network through material almsgiving (jaebosi) lays the foundation for bodily recovery, thereby deriving the significance of the body functioning within relationships, independent of disability status. Fourth, in the stage of the spatial rite of passage, the paper verifies the process through which the protagonists acquire material and transcendent authority via the threshold of the “tomb,” ultimately being recognized as heroic subjects tasked with public missions. Based on this analysis, the significance of this study is twofold. First, it captures the dual gaze surrounding disabled bodies. While realistically depicting the discriminatory gaze of the family and society, the text subverts contemporary limitations by underscoring the relational dynamics and agency of disabled bodies through the protagonists' journey. Second, it highlights the emergence of a hero through relational collaboration. Even after recovering their physical health and becoming “whole individuals (wanin),” the protagonists in Hanhu-ryong-jeon continue to perform their heroic tasks jointly from beginning to end. This demonstrates that heroism is achieved not through an individual’s extraordinary brilliance, but through “relational solidarity.” In conclusion, by treating the disabled body not as a mere defect but as a foundation for solidarity, and by depicting the co-performance of heroism through relational collaboration, Hanhu-ryong-jeon departs from the conventional tropes of heroic novels and presents a new paradigm of heroism, thereby holding significant literary-historical value.

This study reinterprets the motif of women transforming into stone, which repeatedly appears in Korean folktales, moving beyond conventional readings that treat it as a narrative ending and instead understanding it as a condition for narrative generation. Focusing on The Legend of Jangja Pond and The Legend of the Waiting Wife Stone (Mangbuseok), the study examines the meaning of objectification— women’s transformation into stone—through the theoretical framework of new materialism. Previous scholarship has largely interpreted such transformations as punishment for taboo violations, expressions of frustrated desire, or symbols of moral virtues such as chastity. In contrast, this paper argues that petrification should be understood not as the closure of a narrative, but as the starting point that repeatedly generates storytelling. To this end, the study introduces the concept of the “stone-woman” and interprets the transition from human to nonhuman matter not as a rupture, but as a transformation of modes of existence. While losing human agency, the “stone-woman” acquires durability as a material object fixed in a specific place and becomes an exhibited presence repeatedly exposed to human perception. This material persistence anchors the narrative in space and enables its continuous reproduction through oral transmission, thereby constituting what can be termed narrative agency. Furthermore, the “stone-woman” evokes diverse affects, allowing for multiple, layered interpretations rather than a single fixed meaning. This paper conceptualizes such effects as “normative power,” defined not as explicit moral instruction or prescriptive command, but as a non-coercive and fluid influence formed through the repeated perception of the object. In conclusion, this study reconceptualizes folktales not as human-centered systems of meaning transmission, but as relational processes in which material objects, place, and affect interact to generate narrative

This study re-reads The Tale of Kim Inhyang, a late-Joseon stepmother-figure domestic novel, through affect theory and material entanglement, tracing the operative logic of its tragedy beyond particular characters or ideologies. The tragedy is structurally configured before the stepmother arrives, as the deceased first wife Wang's last words constitute her as a future threat through an affective factual logic. Once integrated into the household, the stepmother becomes the body through which tragedy erupts, yet the tragedy itself is accelerated by an entanglement of the patriarch's suspicion and shame, the children's helplessness, and nonhuman actors. Unresolved within the household, affect flows outward across transcendental and actual realms, mediated through state power and external communities as a form of social care. The sisters' resurrection is not merely vindication but the necessary process by which affect, refusing extinction, reclaims the bodies in which to dwell. This operative mode unfolds through three axes—body, space, and information. The work separates bodies that endure tragedy from those that generate it and distributes maternal affect asymmetrically, fixing the stepmother as an affective alien. Space functions as a performative apparatus that condenses and seals affect, reducing social catastrophe back to family misfortune. The material vibrations of information— rumors, last words, letters, and funeral orations—operate as actants determining the tragedy's direction.